Kinsey, Alfred Charles [key], 1894–1956, American biologist, b. Hoboken, N.J., grad. Bowdoin College (B.S., 1916), Harvard (D.Sc., 1920). He was associated with the Univ. of Indiana from 1920, becoming professor of zoology in 1929. His early work dealt with the life cycle, evolution, geographic distribution, and speciation of the gall wasp. He is most widely known for his later extensive studies of human sexual behavior. His program of research on this subject received financial support from the National Research Council, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Univ. of Indiana. Kinsey and his assistants interviewed many thousands of individuals in all parts of the country. Their findings met with considerable popular response when they were presented in Sexual Behavior of the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior of the Human Female (1953). Kinsey's program of studies continues at the Institute for Sex Research, Inc., Bloomington, Ind.
See biographies by J. Jones (1997) and J. Gathorne-Hardy (2000).
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